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Chapter 4
Mathiatis – A Forgotten Cemetery (1878)
Mathiatis Cemetery, viewed from the road between Mathiatis and Agia Varvara, in winter
Location
The most forlorn of all British military cemeteries in Cyprus, and yet the one that best evokes the very
earliest days of the British occupation, is near the village of Mathiatis, in the eastern foothills of the
Troodos mountains approximately halfway between Larnaca and Nicosia.1 It is equidistant between
two small Greek-Cypriot cemeteries some 300 metres distant. There is a small church at each of these
cemeteries, and as there are no nearer buildings they are useful landmarks. They are fitting ones.
The most picturesque approach is via the motorway turnoff to Sia, and thence via Mathiatis village
towards Agia Varvara, past the Greek cemetery and church of Agias Paraskevis. The cemetery comes
into view suddenly as a small tree-filled enclosure surrounded by a collapsing stone wall, in the middle
of a ploughed field to the right (east) of the country road, some 700 metres from Mathiatis.
1 The more exact distance is 20 miles west of Larnaca and 15 miles south of Nicosia.
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